Don't Look Back
by simply loverly
Summary: Kicked out by his family and sent to live with unwelcoming relatives as a punishment for his rebellious nature, Arthur finds a means of defying authority through cross-country running and a frustrating, annoying, yet altogether captivating boy named Alfred F. Jones. USUK.
1. Chapter 1

Don't Look Back

As soon as he leaned forward, inclining his chin at an uncomfortable descending angle towards my face, I knew I was fucked. So I panicked and fucked it up further by rolling out of the car door and sprinting down the driveway.

Just once, I looked back in remorse and saw him sitting motionlessly in the driver's seat with one hand on the steering wheel and an ashen expression graying his face.

* * *

In the most sententious manner of speaking, life is just one long, hard, long-distance run.

Which was fine by me, because everyone in my family has long been affiliated with running (or, more specifically, running from the police).

The one (and only time) the police actually caught me, however, fucked me over in more ways than just one. I stumbled home, half-drunk, and found Peter watching TV, my mom crying, and a strange man drinking tea and mollifying her with kind reassurances.

I thought it was another pimp boyfriend so I turned to go upstairs when the man lunged after me, tackled me, and threw me on the couch.

"Blimey, what the bloody hell—"

Then I spotted the uniform and shut up.

"Hand over your satchel," he gurgled peremptorily. With Mum watching, what else could I do? I took it off my shoulder and shoved it at him. He opened it, and she peered in and shuffled through its contents and began to cry.

I can recall the bloke now, looking all posh and smiling smugly while rasping in his ugly authoritative voice, "You won't be able to run back to Mummy once you're across the pond. No, Kirkland. You aren't going to be able to escape this one!"

I don't quite remember what happened after that, but I do remember her wailing like a deranged banchee and the tone of sycophantic consolations the bobby offered. Then somehow, after much protest and debate and several hours of phoning, they convinced my mum to send me to America to live with her second ex-husband, a pretentious prick who referred to himself as Marquis de Bonnefoy and who had an equal bigot of a son named Francis.

As I recall I laughed and hooted in their face because the idea was so ludicrous that I didn't believe it until I was actually boarding the plane.

* * *

I was enrolled in a certain Clawing Public High School in New York, and I am sorry to write that it was exactly like the typical melodrama hell one sees in cheap Hollywood ripoffs.

They would pay, I swore to myself as I walked in, into the Valley of Death. Girls with makeup and American accents. Boys without makeup and American accents. Girls with slutty makeup and boys with slutty without-makeups and grating, loud American accents. I just as well near died six hundred times.

The principal gave me a tour the first day, telling me about x, y, z and other nonsense I didn't give a damn about.

"And this here is the weight room, which we've just built. It's spankin' brand new," he told me.

I cringed. "Uh-huh." To this he shot me a look.

We walked down the corridors in silence until at last he turned around and said, "Kirkland. I know you're not exactly clean off the slate."

I blinked. "Pardon?"

"I know." He slapped a hand on my shoulder and immediately I backed away. "But in this school, you will need to behave. I understand that everything is hard moving from England and all, but-"

"Excuse me. I don't need your help."

"-we'll keep close tabs on you. Make one false move and you won't be allowed here anymore. You'll have to go to reform school."

I stifled my laughter and turned around in disgust.

* * *

One of the good things that happened when I got to Clawing was the cross-country team. I had intended to do football (or rather, _soccer_ because you wouldn't catch me dead in hell playing American football), but when the captain Matthais watched me run the mile in Phys Ed he insisted.

"Hey, new kid!" he blared in my ear during English class. "Join the cross country team!"

"I already signed up for football," I replied.

"You really think a scrawny kid like you are's gonna survive that? Cross country was made for dudes like you! See you at 3 o'clock after school!"

He left before I knew it, and it wasn't as though I could argue back to a wall.

* * *

But, as I said, running was a hereditary gene carried by my family. I thought, _May as well try it._

It was either less or more enjoyable than I had been counting on, less because I was not very adept socially, and while the others tended to run in packs of three to four, I couldn't bring myself to join them, and more because I preferred running alone.

I don't think there isn't anything much nicer than running alone.

There are only you and the birds and the trees and the fence and the cement below your feet, maybe occasionally an unnamed figure who either stares at you until you've gone by or ignores you. There's no need to contrive sneaky solutions because there are no problems. And somehow when I'm alone like that I envision that I'm the last man on earth.

A _pit-pat-pit-pat_ sort of trot.

There are only the world and I, because even that unnamed figure staring you down is just part of one long, endless ocean of peaceful silence.

* * *

"Hey, Kirkland!" Matthias exclaimed.

Pant, pant.

He stared at me with wide gray eyes as I bounded back from sixteen laps around.

"What?" I uttered, grabbing for water and restraining myself from chugging it all at once.

He shifted about on one foot, his spikey yellow hair blowing in the wind. "How would you like to compete in the kick-offs? Does the steeplechase sound good to you?"

I stood up, drawing my breath, and stared at him. He grinned and said, "Okay. It's decided. We're gonna win this."

He walked away. Obnoxious.

_I don't give a damn about winning_, I thought. _Who the bloody hell cares anyway? I don't want to win anything for this hell hole of a school._

My breathing began to even out. I wiped a hand across my forehead.

* * *

I was running a five mile when I found myself in the middle of a field, filled with husky American football players yelling like brutes.

I turned back but the second I did so, I was hit by a flying object and knocked to the ground.

"Aw shit!"

"Oooh! You hit him! Go say sorry, you bastard, ha ha!" The rest of them joined in chuckling.

I groaned and stood up to flip the bird at the coach and players, but I was quite taken aback to find myself facing a pair of bright blue eyes peering down at me.

"Hey, you okay?" the bloke asked. I grunted in reply, and he tentatively smiled and held out his hand. "Man, I'm sorry. You're not hurt, though?"

"I'll be fine, thank you," I said curtly, and shoved the ball into his chest. "Good day."

And I sprinted off as fast as I could into the distance. He was still staring at me, I'm rather sure of it. I couldn't escape the humiliation of being mockingly stared down with an ugly dimuendo of laughter jogging at my heels.

I later learned that his name was Alfred Jones, the star of the football team and the root of my problems.

* * *

_TBC. Maybe._

_I actually don't run XC. I run track like a slow mofo. But it's all good! Anyway, leave me a review! Let me know what you thought – unleash that inner love or that inner hate._


	2. Chapter 2

I came home after cross country, my calves aching from poor form that day. Usually running is something automatic, inherent in my genes that I don't even notice whether I'm in proper form or not, but today I was pounding my feet on the ground with ferocious, syncopated rhythms that I got yelled at by the coach. Not that I listened to the bastard anyway - I do what I want when I please, but he was hounding me because I was going to run the steeplechase and he said, 'Damn it, that I was going to win,' in that ugly twanging American accent of his.

When I walked in, I found only Francis in the house, reading _Madame Bovary_ for his AP French Class and smirking at me when I entered.

"Ah, you're back, caterpillar! What took you so long?"

I flipped him the bird and bent over to untie my shoes, not caring if I got the floor trekked with dirt and mud.

He only chuckled and flicked the corners of the pages. "You know, mon petit, that you are the talk of the school. And not in the most flattering way, either."

"I don't care. They can all go fuck themselves."

He didn't reply to that at first, so I thought I had got him until I looked up and saw him convulsing with laughter. I threw one of my sneakers at him.

"_Ah mon dieu_! This is the kind of thing they are gossiping about," he said as he wagged his finger at me. Feigning gingerness he picked up the shoe by its lace and threw it away from him. "Peuh. The stink of your sweat is abnormally repulsive. Probably because you're English."

"Yeah. And your normal scent is abnormally repulsive all on its own because you're a French bastard."

"You have no taste! My scent is the acridly sweet fragrance of _liberté, égalité, et fraternité_." He rustled about on the couch to get a better look at me. "_Alors_, this is what they're gossiping about at school. They chat and talk of your ruthless behavior. And how you seem mentally unstable. And how you bother the cross countriers and piss of the football team."

I glared at him, my anger boiling in my veins. "What? What's it to them?"

"Nothing, really." His eyes surveyed me, scrutinized me in a way that made me grit my teeth and clutch my fists. Instead of untying my laces, I just kept fiddling with them, tugging and pulling in anger. "Dad won't be home until late tonight and the maid is taking a day off. If you want something to eat, you'll have to do it yourself."

"What, is he hanging out with another of his prostitutes again?" I sneered.

His eyes wavered in a warning look. "Be careful of what you say. May I remind you whose house you're in-"

"Like I said, I don't give a damn."

"Oh, really?" He stood up, knocking the book off the couch with a cacophonous crash. He stormed over and bent down to violently jerk my ear. "You should give a damn, as you say. Because your mother, unlike mine, was actually one. And still is."

I slapped his hand away and was about to sputter a retort until I realized that what he was saying had some truth in it and it wasn't worth it to defend a lie I didn't believe myself anyway. I laughed instead, and satisfied myself by looking at his shocked expression, and then I glided away with one shoe on, still laughing, up to my room.

* * *

In the middle of my lunch period, one day, I received an overseas call from my mum on the cell phone the Bonnefoys had lent me.

The name blared for several seconds on the screen before going blank. I breathed a sigh of relief until it promptly lit up again, and things persisted in that way with me glaring in dread at it as it went _blink blink blink_ until at last I relented and picked it up.

"Hello? Just one second."

I rose from the table where a few other outcasted blokes like myself were sitting with that long and languid stare on their eyeballs. There was no place to go except for outside, and even outside there were eyes, but I took the option when I saw Francis and his slimy grin pasted all over his mouth like the repulsive slob he was.

I chippered on outside and was hit by the scent of wet leaves warmed by the sun. A few oiks were tossing around playing catch and making vulgar noises, and I deigned to flee as far away as I could before I answered. "Hello. This is Arthur."

"Arthur?" The mobile crackled a bit. "Arthur? Hello? This is your mum."

"Yes. I know." As though I could forget her voice that quickly, and its shrill intonations and stupid girly whine that was all at once immature and maternal. I hated her and I wanted to stay, but then I was irrevocably tied to her and wanted to return. I coughed, hoped the static hid my chokes.

"Arthur? Are you still there?"

"Yes."

"How've you been? Are things all right with the chaps in your, uh, new school?"

"Yes."

"Oh, but that's so good!" She paused, inhaled deeply, sounding no different than a fish sucking the air off a pond. "Peter and I've been good. You know, he just got back a test today and did... Not to well, to say the least. But he's putting in effort, I can see... And work for me, oh, well, I don't suppose it's been going all that well, but then..."

I stayed silent because I didn't give a damn about her work that she didn't have, or the high grades Peter never earned, or even the brilliant American life that I wasn't living, and I hated her most of all for trying to evade the point of the call with bloody mundane idiocy. She thought she could smooth over everything in one phone call by pretending nothing was wrong, but she was damn mistaken if she thought she could do that.

"Arthur?" she tooted. "Are you listening? Say something."

What did she expect me to say? That I missed her? Missed Peter? Missed England? That I was sorry? All I really wanted to say was "I hate you" and let the words fall like bombs and to bloody not care. But she was my mother, and I couldn't say that to my mother no matter how much I wanted to.

I was a bitter prat, and angst-ridden, and selfish, but I didn't care and all I cared about was that I had thoughts and feelings that I only knew and she didn't even try to understand. It was probably because it had been the same way with my half-brothers, Scot and David and Pat, and she was used to having ghouls for children so she gave up trying to get it a long time ago.

So I said, "I'm having a great time here."

I'm still not sure if she knew that I was lying.

We were both quiet again for a while after that. I was conscious that the bell would ring in another few minutes, and my lunch was still half-uneaten, probably rotting in the cafeteria by now.

"Did Marquis Francois tell you?" she suddenly piped.

"What is it?"

"If you behave yourself for the first semester, you can come back."

"... Come back?" I parroted. I really meant to repeat the "behave yourself" part, because to her it was like I was a disobedient dog, and I wanted to snarl at her for thinking so.

"Yes." The school bell rang and the idiots playing ball scrambled to get their sacs. "But only if you behave. You can't drink, or steal, or play pranks, or any of that nonsense. You have to be good, you've got to obey the authority-"

I hung up and slammed the screen shut. For a while I listened to the sound of bumbling footsteps retreating into the school, without budging myself at all.

* * *

Instead of following the others into the building and retrieving my stuff, I sat on a rock in the yard and just stared at the buses and vehicles parked in the lot, until a voice broke my train of thought, "You know, the bell rang a long time ago."

I glanced at the face looming over my head and was seized by a wavering sensation. Hastily I averted my gaze back to the line of cars in front of the sidewalk. "I don't give a damn."

I thought he'd leave but he instead sat down next to me, far enough not to intrude on my personal space but close to make me feel uncomfortable. I fidgeted with my phone to avoid looking in his direction, at his blue eyes and their mocking undertones that had been haunting me all day after being laughed at by his fellow goonies on the football team. "I'm sorry for hitting you with that football yesterday. By the way, I'm Alfred."

"I know. I'm Arthur," I grunted, and just for a moment I slid my eyes towards him and saw a big grin on his lips, like a moron or something. "Don't you, er, have something better to do?"

"Like what?"

I slapped a hand to my face. "No. I meant please lea-"

"I don't want to."

I stared at him and he stared back, like both of us challenging one another. I suppose I expected him to give a better reason or something, but he apparently wasn't going to and so I looked back down nervously, thinking perhaps he was mocking me, thinking perhaps he was shallowly fixated on that incident and was just another American fool looking to torment a nutter like myself. Any second, then, I supposed he would find an excuse to strike a conversation with me and humiliate me by exposing "scandalous secrets" of mine.

But to my surprise, he didn't, and just sat there, drinking a soda and eating a hamburger for lunch. He barely looked my way, opting to stare out into the vacant lot. I kept stealing covert glances at him over my phone, staring at his blond hair and blue eyes, so _American_ to the point of being conformist. He was every cliche I could imagine hating in a novel, but as I sat there I didn't hate him, and it made me wonder again about what was real and what was just dramatizations in a book.

Then the bell rang and before we knew it we had skipped the period without doing anything at all.

Alfred shouldered his bag, regarded me with something annoying like pity in those doggish blue eyes of his, flashed a grin, walked off without another word. I continued glaring in his direction, wondering what the bloody hell gave him a reason to smile like that.

* * *

After that I tried not to give much thought to the incident until I came home that afternoon from cross country and realized Francis was standing in the frame of my bedroom doorway, some devious gleam in his eyes. "What do you want, frog?" I demanded, sitting up on my bed.

He only laughed and leaned into the doorway of my room.

"I would be careful about how you treat me, _mon garcon_," he warned with a grin. "After all, you are only here because—"

"I don't give a damn. Just tell me what you need to say and get out!" I spat.

He walked in and sat on the rug and stretched out like a cat. I envisioned myself stepping on him. "I wanted to tell you something. I see you've been hanging about Alfred, yes, and you see, Alfred has a brother Matthew. Ahh, Matthew…"

"So you want to fuck him, okay. Great. Get on with it."

"Quiet, _mon dieu_, I am getting there! Perhaps I won't tell you if you're going to treat me like this."

I was silent, and he sighed and went on. "Well, Matthew and I… perhaps we _are_ having a unexpected… ah, bout of friendship, if you please. And he's told me some very interesting things about Alfred…"

He glanced up at me to see my reaction. I had none.

He went on anyway. "_Par example_ - you know how everyone is saying he should date that girl, what was it... Natalia? Because they are always hanging near each other. But guess what? He does not love her. In fact, he doesn't like her. And he does not like any other girls. Not one. _A__ucune_! _Tu comprends_?"

Indeed I got it, and I stuck my nose down into my homework so he couldn't read my expression. "I don't know why you had to drag that out. You could've just said in two words and a half," I said. "And why did you think I'd care? Get out now."

"I thought you'd be interested—" I started to get up and he jumped away with a flurry. "Aie! _Je m'en vais_! _Je m'en vais_!"

I kicked the door extra hard. Why he wanted me to know about Alfred's sexuality, I didn't know, nor would I have normally cared, had not I the sensation that secretly, Francis was bent on ruining me, and would employ any means he could to do so. Including by ruining Alfred.

I kicked the door again. I'd show hiim.

* * *

_I'm such a fail at updating. Sorry orz. Thank you to all who reviewed, favorited, and followed! You guys are awesome. I hope this story lives up to your expectations._

_Please leave me a review to let me know how I'm doing. I greatly appreciate it! :) Merry Christmas!_


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